There's a recent trend emerging in the international belly dance community that's come to my attention. It's the obsession with creating your own style. Over the past year, I've had several workshop attendees ask me how to do this, and how I created mine. This is an important question, but also a bit misguided...at least as it pertains to me. I didn't create my own style. It created itself. I didn't sit down with myself one day and say hey, I've been dancing professionally now for x amount of years, it's time to create my own set of moves and combinations. I mean it's OK to have that conversation with yourself, but it's neither necessary nor guaranteed to result in your own signature moves. Rather, as I suspect happens with many dancers known for being different, we stumble upon new moves as we advance in our careers. Not while taking classes, but on the stage and while practicing in the studio. I've noticed that the more we perform and choreograph, the more our bodies reveal different ways of moving to us.
As with everything, this is a
process that comes easier to some of us than others. After all, life is not
fair. We don't all have the same opportunities, abilities, experiences, or resources.
And we're talking about art here. Art is a very personal enterprise. It depends
on factors that vary from individual to individual, such as access to training;
how long you've been dancing; training in other dance or art forms; body type
and overall health; technical ability; cognitive ability; personality; psychological
disposition, aptitude for creativity; ability to think abstractly; intellectual
background; life experience; worldview; spiritual inclinations; economic and
social status; the environment one grew up in; the languages they have access
to; childhood experiences, etc. Art depends on all that-- on everything that
makes you unique. That's why one person's art will look different from
another's. If it doesn't, that person is a copy artist.
